Vengeance

Chapter 14

When the vision finally releases me, I find myself sprawled on the cool earth, my chest rising and falling in uneven gasps. My body feels like it’s been wrung out and left hollow, every nerve trembling with the echo of what I saw. The forest above me spins, the canopy of leaves blurring into a whirl of green and gold until, slowly, the world steadies again.

Two faces hover above me. Hela’s sharp eyes glint with something I rarely see in her—alarm—while Zion’s expression is taut with a kind of frantic worry that unsettles me more than the vision itself. His hand lingers dangerously close to mine, fingers twitching as if he’s afraid that if he lets go, I’ll be lost again.

“Calista,” Hela murmurs, brushing a damp lock of hair from my forehead with uncharacteristic gentleness.

I force myself upright, though my limbs feel impossibly heavy, like they’re moving through water. My breath comes shallow, uneven. My gaze locks on Zion, my heart stumbling against my ribs. The words spill out raw, cracked.

“What… what just happened to me? What did I just see?”

For a long moment, Zion doesn’t answer. His eyes are still clouded, reflecting the afterimage of the vision. He swallows hard, shoulders tense as though he’s trying to cage something too vast inside his chest.

“I don’t know,” he admits finally, his voice low, hesitant. “But I saw it too. Every piece of it.” His hand drags through his hair, his features shadowed with unease. “The king was there—but not as we know him. He looked younger. Different. And the man beside him… he must have been the true king then.”

He shakes his head, as though trying to dislodge the images. “It was like… like we were standing in the middle of some grand celebration. An engagement feast, maybe. The hall, the laughter, the goblets lifted high—I could feel the warmth of it. The joy. It wasn’t just a dream. It was real.”

Zion’s voice falters, his eyes flicking toward me, sharp with something unspoken. “But it wasn’t just the place. The ones who were engaged…” His throat works, struggling to force the words free. “They seemed… familiar. Faces I should know, but can’t quite name. Like a memory that belongs to me, but isn’t mine.”

The silence that follows is thick, heavy enough to press against my skin. Zion finally turns toward Hela, as though hoping she’ll speak the truth he can’t bring himself to.

Hela only shakes her head, lips pressed thin. Before she can answer, the underbrush explodes with sound. Branches snap. Ewen bursts into the clearing, wild-eyed, his presence crackling with barely contained panic.

“What happened?” His voice booms, raw with fear. His gaze finds me immediately, and in two strides he’s at my side, pushing past Zion with a forceful shove. His hands hover over me, frantic, searching for wounds. “I felt you, Calista. Your fear. Your pain.”

I place a trembling hand on his wrist, forcing his attention. “I’m okay,” I whisper, though the word feels fragile. I glance briefly at Zion before turning back to Ewen. “When Zion and I touched, we were… dragged into a vision. We saw something from before. From another life. We knew each other.”

Ewen stiffens, eyes narrowing on Zion, suspicion etched deep in every line of his face.

But Hela interrupts, her tone calm, measured. “That must be why he keeps calling you Khalida,” she says. “If that’s the case, then there may be another path—another way to unbind our magic. But it’s not a choice to be made lightly.”

My breath catches. “Another way? Tell me, please.”

Hela sighs, rubbing a hand through her hair, her sharp features softening for the briefest moment. “If you and Zion truly knew each other in your past life, there is a chance you were soul-bound. If that bond still lingers, it may be possible to rekindle it. But…” Her gaze flicks toward Zion, assessing him with an edge of doubt. “His soul is not whole. You’ve already found one fragment of him, but the others are scattered. Drawn to you, perhaps, if the bond is reforged—but there are no guarantees.”

A strange, aching pull tightens in my chest. “And how do we… rebind our souls?”

Hela’s eyes meet mine, reluctant. “Through the oldest of bonds. You must… rebond by mating.”

The air cracks like lightning.

Ewen is on his feet in an instant, towering over us, his voice a roar. “No. Absolutely not. There is no way I’ll let her ‘mate’ with this stranger.” His hand cuts through the air, motioning furiously toward Zion. “You expect her to—?”

I rise unsteadily, placing a hand on his arm before he can spiral further. “Ewen.” My voice is quiet, but it slices through his anger like a blade. “It isn’t your choice.”

He freezes, eyes wide with shock as if I’ve struck him. For a moment, the fight drains from his shoulders, leaving only raw disbelief. Then, without another word, he spins on his heel and storms into the trees, the branches whipping violently in his wake.

I stand there, heart pounding, torn between the fragments of a life I don’t fully remember and the bonds of the one I still live in. The clearing feels smaller now, as though the weight of the past is pressing down on all of us.